INTRODUCTION TO THE 2012 EDITION “May I try a free sample?” After speaking those six simple words, the ritual would always be the same: A smiling gray-haired clerk at a Hickory Farms Christmas stand in one of the many Western Pennsylvania malls I visited during my childhood would poke a...

Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the one day where family and friends reunite, reconnect, and relapse over a grocery-store-bought feast of turkey, stuffing and wine. Football is watched. Happy tears are shed. Everlasting memories are made. Balderdash. Come on, admit it, if I...

A bi-weekly blog featuring the recollections of a soon-to-be demolished super regional mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as told to Ryan Dixon. It’s quiet now. Allegheny Energy has pulled the plug, sending the lights blinking into blindness. The music, which had been going steady for nearly 30...

The Man From Primrose Lane is pretty fucking great. Is it okay if I just end my review right here? After all, in an ideal world, one sentence of profuse praise for James Renner’s debut novel would be enough to convince you to go to Amazon right now and hit “purchase.” But that’s not how it...

In Watergate, Thomas Mallon’s exceedingly entertaining, panoramic re-telling of the eponymous presidential scandal now forty years old, Richard Nixon’s downfall is framed as the inevitable, near-farcical conclusion of one of our most tragic national epics: the 1960’s. As the novel opens in...

Before the internet allowed us to watch footage of people being murdered for free, any aspiring video-age Percival had to search high and low for quality snuff. There was no relic so highly prized as the Grail of gross, Faces of Death. Often shelved in the back rooms of those pre-Blockbuster...

Let’s just jump to the question you really want to ask: Does Alan Lightman’s new novel, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, live up to the enormous accomplishment of his first one, Einstein’s Dreams? Comprised of chapters devoted to the dreams young Albert Einstein had while working on his...

“Literary critics have labeled Michel Houellebecq’s novels ‘vulgar,’ ‘pamphlet literature’ and ‘pornography;’ he has been accused of obscenity, racism, misogyny and islamophobia.” Why couldn’t I have read that book? Considering that one of his...

Ernessa says: It feels so weird to not be making any resolutions this year. Some people love this time of the year because of the gift exchanges, time spent with family, goodwill toward man, blah, blah, blah — but I’ve always been a resolution girl myself. I love making the list...

Amy Says: To continue my streak of disliking the stuff everybody else likes (ie. I didn’t care for A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, which so many others loved…maybe I should be the “On the Contrary” guy next year. I swear to g*d I’m not doing this on purpose.) In my...

Amy says: Can a remake of a BBC show be considered new? If so, then PRIME SUSPECT is my pick for the best new TV of the year. Maria Bello is awesome in everything I’ve ever seen her in. Detective procedurals aren’t normally my thing, but I love the complexity of the characters...

Amy Says: I was so excited about a movie mash-up of western and sci-fi. It would have cowboys AND aliens! My expectations were super high. Sadly, COWBOYS & ALIENS is my pick of the worst movie of 2011. While it was moderately entertaining, the dialogue was clunky and I just felt sorry for...

Amy says : My favorite movie of the year should have been RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, but I was in the Colorado wilderness the entire time it was in theaters. The original, with Chuck Heston, is my favorite movie of all time. The first time I saw it, I knew I wanted to be an actor. It was...

Ernessa says: I’m going to make the caveat again that if I manage to get through a book, it must have something to recommend it. Life is short, and I’ve become rather good at putting down books I’m not enjoying. That claimed, this category was a bit difficult for me this...

Able to leap multidisciplinary subjects in a single bound, Umberto Eco is the college professor you always wanted to have. His first novel, 1980’s international bestseller The Name of the Rose placed such seemingly inaccessible topics as semiotics and biblical hermeneutics inside the...

Want to win a free McRib? Then play Fierce & Nerdy’s Search for the Great McRibiography! Here’s how to win your FREE McRib: 1. Read Ryan’s Dixon’s now classic manifesto: The Five Reasons Why the McRib is the Greatest Fast Food Item of All Time 2. In the Comments...

To start, let’s compare Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel The Stranger’s Child to the Boston Red Sox. In 2004, Hollinghurst won the Man Booker Prize (Britain’s highest literary award) for his previous novel, The Line of Beauty. That same year the Boston Red Sox won their first world series in 86...

Every hero hears the call to adventure. So, too, then must a critic — perhaps the most passive of all protagonists — discover the stylistic and aesthetic tools needed to tell perfect strangers how to think about a work of art. In Roger Ebert’s new memoir Life Itself, the...

.500. For any fan of baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, this number now has more significance than Barry Bonds’ home run record, DiMaggio’s hit streak or Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played. When I wrote the following blogumn in March, it looked like the chances of the...

I have a problem. And like most of my problems, I was the last one to know about it. In fact, I had considered this problem an attribute until last Saturday night when I was strolling through the outdoor shopping and dining district of Old Town Pasadena enjoying a fruitful, funny conversation...

Soda is delicious. But to the ancient Callatians, so was the flesh of dead relatives and nowadays no one outside of gourmand serial killers would salivate over a dish of foie gras d’ humain. That soda and junk food have followed in the footsteps of flesh and cigarettes to become the...

To: Newly Promoted President of Production at Major Hollywood Studio From: The Mainstream Moviegoing Audience of America Congratulations on your new job! After years of suffering through labyrinthine lunch orders, death-defying dry cleaning runs and post-orgy organization duty, you’ve...

How Morgan Spurlock’s POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold shows the world the glory of Sheetz. During the 1940’s, Walt Disney spent weekends sitting on creaky benches watching his daughters play at shoddy, destitute amusement parks. Those endless hours suffering in communal...

A Reader’s Guide to Not Reading Ulysses. It can happen to anyone. You’re at a birthday party, Bar Mitzvah, or PTA meeting. The day has gone well, the weather outside is perfect, you’re happy to be alive. But then the rabbi, soccer mom super hero or neighbor’s boarding school brat references...

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has yet to kill anyone, but could it end up murdering the Broadway Flop? No show in Broadway history has ever battled through such a dizzying array of troubles as Spider-Man: Turn Off Dark. The buzz hasn’t just been bad, it’s been genocidal. And like the war in...

“The Ancient Greeks reserved a special word for the sort of arrogance that makes you forget your own humanity. That word was Hubris.” — From an introductory essay included in the Playbill of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Note to Julie Taymor, Bono and The Edge: When...

Ernessa says: Yay! Well, New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday and my favorite holiday activity is making my New Year’s Resolutions. But in order to do that, it’s good to review how you did the year before. So out of the 11 bulletpoint resolution list that I made last year,...

Ernessa says: My big complaint of the year is that there were really too many bad TV shows to choose from in 2010. I seriously had a hard time narrowing down my choices. Note to TV Execs: Next year you’ve just got to do better. That said, I’m going to have to go with THE WALKING...

Ernessa says: Well, guys for the first time in the entire history of me being moi, I find myself ending the year with no favorite new show. None of last winter’s mid-season replacements, the summer series, or the new fall series are deserving of high praise in my opin. As every...

Ernessa says: SO many great songs this year. Standouts for me included ROLLING IN THE DEEP by Adele, KEEP THE LIGHTS ON by Wave Machines, DIFFICULT by Uffie, BURIAL by Miike Snow, and XXXO by MIA — which was a surprising “grow on me,” since I claimed to meh it back in August...

Ernessa Says: Least Favorite Moment(s) of the Year: I’m still trying to process our dog, Tulip’s unexpected death. Also, one of my heroes, my Aunt Almeda also passed. As for my favorite moment of the year, I’ve been thinking hard about this, and while I enjoyed every single...

Ernessa says: This was a hard one. Part of me wants to say SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD b/c the females were so poorly rendered in this film and I had such high expectations. But I think I’ll have to go with MEGAMIND, because it was such a boys club, and pretty much everything...

Ernessa says: I thought for a long time I would choose INCEPTION, because it’s truly a spectacular feat of writing and directing that audiences would come out of that movie saying, “It was so different and confusing” when in actuality we had been spoon-fed the plot and the...

Ernessa says: The nice thing about being a published author is that it’s considered bad form to talk ish about other writers in a public forum. Because of this, if I found myself not enjoying a book during my 52 Books in 52 Weeks project, I put it down and went on to the next book on my...

Yay, we’ve come down to my favorite time of the year, when chins hit chests and we spend a week pr two firmly gazing at our navels. Over the course of the next two weeks on FaN, we’ll be weighing in on our favorite books, movies, music, TV shows, and moments of the soon-to-be...

a blogumn by Ryan Dixon INTRODUCTION TO THE 2010 EDITION Like that Christmas Eve story Grandpa always told that became longer and more convoluted as the years went on, the time has once again arrived for my ever-growing annual holiday column on Hickory Farms Beef Stick. I figure if George...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers...

INTRODUCTION TO THE 2010 EDITION: Why Me? How did an always poor, mostly anonymous and only occasionally witty blogumnist living in Burbank, CA suddenly find himself as the protagonist in a real-life, 21st century Horatio Alger novel? During the past three weeks I’ve been quoted in the...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers...

To celebrate Halloween, all week Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers...

Just in time for Halloween Week, Fierce and Nerdy is proud to present the online premiere of John Dunn’s Last Run, a darkly comic psychological horror film written and directed by Hell House: The Awakening co-author and F&N contributor Ryan Dixon and produced by F&N writers...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening: A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event By Ryan Dixon Click Here for Part I Click Here for Part II The phone rang in my dorm room during the dawning hours of a frigid Monday morning in January 1999. Already awake and blearily trying to...

I’m looking soooo forward to the 32 CANDLES Q&A at Writing Pad tonight. And I’ve been really good with the Weight Watchers points this week, so salted caramel cupcakes will be eaten without guilt. This I decree! But before all that, let’s get our procrastination on,...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening: A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event By Ryan Dixon Click Here for Part I “This is Steve,” the Grim Reaper guide says. “He thought his homosexual lifestyle was everything a real man could want, but now he’s dying of AIDS.” While the exact...

On the Origins of Hell House: The Awakening: A Special Multi-Part Fierce Anticipation Event “Where do you get your ideas?” As a writer I’m asked that question a lot. Usually I respond by spouting off something about an amalgamation of life experience, imaginative fancy and just plain ripping...

Back in August I promised that today I was going to reveal the true and terrifying story behind the upcoming graphic novel I co-wrote, Hell House: The Awakening. Well, it turns out I f*cked up the release date and Hell House: The Awakening isn’t actually coming out until later this...

. a favorite blogumn by Ryan Dixon Ryan Says: Love at first sight? For me, it’s a dubious concept with one notable exception. During a trip to Boston last August I fell instantly into Eros’ pulsating embrace upon my first step inside Jordan’s Furniture. For those who didn’t read this...

. a favorite blogumn by Ryan Dixon Before his diagnosis of Esophageal cancer took up all the headlines and dominated the interviews, Christopher Hitchens’ officially-minted feud with literary lion Gore Vidal looked like it was going to be one of the featured topics during the publicity tour...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING You Watching the Hell House: The Awakening trailer! On September 8th HELL HOUSE: THE AWAKENING, a graphic novel I co-wrote with Chad Feehan, will be unleashed upon unsuspecting readers all across America. While I won’t reveal the dark, twisted...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Those lucky enough to count themselves as children of the 80’s know the truth. If it was amongst your possessions, there was perhaps no other toy that earned more esteem from one’s elementary school peers than Voltron: Defender of the Universe (which should not...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING ON DEMAND “Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” “Yeah, I really want to.” “And you won’t have any regrets? You know there’s no going back.” “I want to. I want to do it. Badly. Really badly.” And so last Friday evening, my roommate and I, after...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Fiercely Anticipating Tom Cruise in Knight and Day I come to praise Tom Cruise, not to bury him. That I can present you with this brief, but spirited defense, is due to one major reason: I used to work for the man. If you’ve spent any time employed in the...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Fiercely Anticipating The Novelization Like any adolescent with a slice of ambition and a small sliver of spunk, I was always searching for new and inventive ways to see R-rated movies. Unfortunately, in the confines of my rural existence, where the nearest theater...

She released her soft, moist tongue from around my throbbing member. And then her naked body, dripping with liquid crystals of love sweat, began to mount me. In a matter of minutes, I would be a virgin no longer… Okay, enough with that. Per the new format of FaN, our dauntless edittress...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon A very busy week with lots of overdue projects equals an abbreviated Fierce Anticipation. Instead of providing you with an 2,000 word exegesis on the glories of Honey Baked Ham or a dissertation exploring the semiotics of The Real Housewives of New York, I’ve...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Returning to Fierce Anticipation “So, where were you?” That’s what you’re asking right now. Wondering what the hell happened in my own life to cause me to go missing on this very web page for nearly six months. Well, as...

Whatta fierce and nerdy week! Here are my thoughts: 1. I just love that France requires a chest x-ray from its would-be citizens. I wonder why… 2. Poor Robin actually asked me if it was okay to self-promote on the blog, and I answered something along the lines of “Absolutely not,...

. an occasional blogumn about an assortment of things by Ryan Dixon Here’s a tip for any theatre-centric PhD candidate desperately looking for a thesis topic: write your dissertation on the history of sequels to Broadway musicals. In fact, I’ll make your job even easier and provide you with...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING THE ORACLE OF DIXON: 2010 EDITION The NFL playoffs are starting this weekend without the Pittsburgh Steelers. No matter how you look at it, the evidence is pretty clear: It’s all my fault. During the course of the NFL’s regular season I used a...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon Introduction to the 2009 Edition Last December, I wrote a blogumn explaining my unconditional love for Hickory Farm’s Beef Stick. The post was a raging success and, after talking with the editor, we’ve decided to bring it back as a special holiday treat....

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING The McRib This past Sunday I was driving down the long, wide stretch of San Fernando Blvd in Burbank, CA, searching for a place to buy a salad for lunch, when I passed the local McDonald’s and noticed that the “McDouble” sign that had graced the...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Black Friday Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the one day where family and friends reunite, reconnect, and relapse over a grocery-store-bought feast of turkey, stuffing and wine. Football is watched. Happy tears are shed....

What an awesome week! Sami got her baby back on Days of Our Lives and Al Gore was on 30 Rock. Plus I’m in the middle of a really good book. Seriously could life be any better? HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: November 13-15, in which Ryan Dixon dissed both 2012 and Cincinnati....

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In which the Bengals are declawed, A Christmas Carol sings again and 2012 can’t come fast enough. FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers It seems like once every other decade or so the Cincinnati Bengals manage to sew together a football...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which Applebee’s is Defended, the Minnesota Vikings Dissed and Saw VI Declawed… FIERCELY DEFENDING Eating at Applebee’s Are you an aspiring comedy writer? Do you need an easy joke to top off that last scene? Is mentioning George W. Bush a little too...

From the comments of Ryan Dixon’s Fierce Anticipation, in which he laid out a video argument for just how bad Cleveland sucks (especially when compared to Pittsburgh). Jersey Joe: Cleveland is a rather clean and quiet city, but has very passionate sports fans [...] When you say...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which The Stepfather Arrives, Usher Falls and Cleveland Still Sucks… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Choosing Between The Stepfather and The Fall of the House of Usher As I see it, if you’re in the mood for a gothic and gory tale of severe family dysfunction and...

Wowzers! I’m not saying that I should have gotten my act together and blogged about Interracial Relationships a long time ago, but we did have our best week since I liveblogged my labor and delivery back in June. Go here to check out this week’s topic in our Month of Minefields...

In Which Detroit is Rebuked, Cloudy Rains Again and Free Style is Disciplined… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Detroit Lions If I were Detroit I’d really hate Pittsburgh right now. Think about it. Last month, during the G-20 conference hundreds of articles were published...

Good Gawd, mama’s tired. Miss Betty is calling herself trying to cut a tooth, and she has been letting us know that she’s not happy about this situation at various times in the morning for like two nights now. Not cool, man. Not cool. But at least the comments did us right this...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In which we ponder the mysteries of football while eating buffalo wings, but not Meatballs. FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Teaching My Girlfriend about Football One of the ancient rituals of courtship is the indoctrination into the habits, hobbies and areas of interest of...

So Patrick Swayze died this week and the new Jay Leno show started and Kanye West dissed Taylor Swift, therefore guaranteeing that he will continue to get invited to the VMA’s b/c he is act-a-fool ratings gold a great performer. We also had some awesome comments and quotes. Check...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon In Which a Diabolical Crime is Uncovered, Sorority Row re-visited and Michael Douglas dissected… FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Catching the Can Man They were two men. Both alike in many ways; late middle age, short and stout, beer bellies the size of bowling balls,...

Whatta week! We celebrated our 1-year blogoversary and as it turns out it now takes me more than a week to clean up real good for a big event, like this weekend’s Technical Emmys. But enough about that, let’s get into the best comments of the week: HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon The Furniture Store as Theme Park Edition (with Complimentary Bonus Photos!) FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Jordan’s Furniture Over the past decade, when dinner party chatter would turn to the topic of the best themed furniture stores in the nation, my well-worn...

. a subbing in by Michael Gutenplan [Ed. Note: Dear Ryan will be back next week, but meanwhile please enjoy Michael Gutenplan's tale of going to Vegas alone. Yes, alone! And show him lots of comment love.] You Should Fiercely Anticipate (This trip for yourself!) Las Vegas Las Vegas is an...

Whatta week, and is it me or has this summer going by incredibly fast? How is it almost Fall already? Anywho, I’m a little too exhausted today to think up a good transition, so I’ll just say, here are the best comments of the week: HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: August...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Madden NFL 10 “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY REMEMBERING Flea Markets The middle of August is almost here and — if today’s release of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra wasn’t enough of a hint – that means we have officially entered the dreary days of dog. For those attending or teaching school in the...

Having written a book that somewhat revolves around the movie, Sixteen Candles, I’m still reeling from John Hughes death, but at least I have this week’s comments to give me comfort. HELLO FRIDAY re: FIERCE ANTICIPATION: July 31-August 2, in which Ryan Dixon confesses to cheating...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING Finishing The Power Broker This column is a cry for help. While I normally wouldn’t use this space to talk about my personal life, this particular crisis has left me paralyzed to think or write about anything else: I am in a long-term book...

Just what is in Sauce Americaine and how should one properly spell “yay?” We’ve learned a lot this week at good ole Fierce and Nerdy. Check it out: HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: July 24-26, in which Ryan Dixon told us the worst guinea pig story in the history of...

. a blogumn by Ryan Dixon FIERCELY ANTICIPATING In the Loop In the graveyard of movie genres, the traditional, door-slamming farce (celluloid and digital descendants of French playwright Georges Feydeau’s oeuvre) must be one of the first tombstones. Movies that fit this form (A Fish Called...

On Saturday, July 11th, “John Dunn’s Last Run,” a 30-minute film I wrote and directed that revolves around nighttime jogging, ghosts, underage sexual temptation and unwanted back hair will screen at the Johnstown Film and Wine Festival in Pennsylvania.* Since I’m sure that many of...

Oh, man, I’m leaving you in the more than capable hands of slpc next week, but I’m like already missing you guys super big time. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about all these awesome comments. HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: June 12-14, in which Ryan...